Installing Linux...

[riasroC]

Hi, I first registered here maybe 2 years ago but I no longer have that account available to me, so I had to register a new one. =]

Anyway, I do have a general bit of computer knowledge but I would like some health concerning the installation of linux. I looked around a bit and decided mandrake would be the best since its good for beginners(me).

Anyway, I have a 200GB Hard drive. IIRC Windows can only read ~120GB of it or so without doing some special shit to it, so I wanna make a Windows partition of 120GB and a Mandrake Partition of ~80GB. This would make it so that all 200GB would be put to use, as opposed to right now where only ~127GB is. What's the best way to do this? I have windows on it right now. I do know there is some weird shit about how if you install linux first, windows can give you problems. So I need to know the name of a program that will help me do this, or in general what I have to do myself.

The reason I wanna use linux is for some more computer knowledge in general and I also think trying out a new O/S for awhile will be fun. Windows XP however will still be used for gaming because I know that linux sucks for games(but I only open up wc3 a few times a week, I have friends/school/guitar, and that takes up a lot of my time). So anyway, how good is linux at handling the "other" stuff that I would do besides gaming? This would include web browsing(I know it can do that), but I also need some good media players for all of my movies and music and pictures. Is their software available for linux that is decent/better than windows? I also need a word processor for it, but I think I'll be able to download one.

Very importantly though are their many chat clients? I don't mean IRC because 99% of teenagers don't use IRC/know what it is, so I am talking like MSN and ICQ in this sense, because I tend to do a lot of that while websurfing.

Can someone answer these questions, as well as give me reccomendations for any programs that I might need/want? Thanks duders.

[Skinner8]

Oh my. I thought I was the only one with the 128 GB problem... I got a 160 GB HDD a while ago, and Windows would only recognise 128 GB of it. After I formatted, installed Linux, and later reinstalled Windows XP, though, it's always recognised all of it (well, 152 GB actually, but that's some sort of faulty labelling if I'm not mistaken). Can't say I know of a real good way to do it otherwise, though.

As for the programs, yes, there are many good ones. GAIM can be used for pretty much all your IM needs. Knoppix has tons of programs on it, might want to see if you can get a list of them or something.

Oh, also, I haven't used Mandrake, but Slackware hasn't given me any trouble at all, and I'm a total Linux n00b.

[Deach]

Too bad I didn't how I screwed up Windows yesterday while installing Slackware. I could have told you what not to do.

[Norgus]

For word processing open office org is teh pwnage, I use it on windows even (though its definately for linux also).

You really don't need to worry about any of the things you mentioned in your post, there are many IM clients as are there media players (I especially like mplayer) but xmms is good for your music.

I expect all of these programs will be on the default mandrake install anyway, along with many others you may or may not need.

[Xaenn]

I like Abiword much more than OpenOffice.org...it's not so huge.
Mplayer is an incredible media player. I've been using BMP as an alternative to xmms, but they are super simlilar. Gaim is great for chatting, I use it on windows. Firefox is the best web browser still.

I would say FreeBSD, but it's not really the most n00b friendly. However, IMO with things like KDE/Gnome, you're not really getting away from the bloat that is windows. That said I think fluxbox rules. I'm working on a guide for FreeBSD, and hopefully can get it up online in a few weeks here. I'll give you a link to it if you'd like.

[MaXim]

Well, if the need ever arises for you to run Windows programs, there's Wine. Xaenn is right about KDE and Gnome, they are not what they used to be, and both consume gargantuan amounts of memory Linux can be installed without those desktops, so it really comes down to what kind of system you want to use.
Mandrake is good for beginners, but the wizards might get annoying to everyone at some stage (as I found out myself).

[riasroC]

Okay, well I know Wine is a windows emulator(or something related to that), but exactly how does it work? Do I just click on it and I'm all the sudden in an emulated windows from linux? Doesn't make much sense.

Also, if I wipe my drive clean, would it work ok if I made a 120GB partition with windows, a 20GB partition with windows, and a 60GB for linux? Would I install windows regularly and make those partitions, and just put linux on them? *confused*

Also, how much memory does that stuff require?

Athlon 2000 XP+
768MB PC2100 RAM
Radeon 9600

Is that enough to use wine/and whatever that "kde" and "gnome" stuff is?

So many questions.. =]

Also Deach: what should I not do?

[Deach]

Okay, well I know Wine is a windows emulator(or something related to that), but exactly how does it work? Do I just click on it and I'm all the sudden in an emulated windows from linux? Doesn't make much sense.

Also, if I wipe my drive clean, would it work ok if I made a 120GB partition with windows, a 20GB partition with windows, and a 60GB for linux? Would I install windows regularly and make those partitions, and just put linux on them? *confused*

Also, how much memory does that stuff require?

Athlon 2000 XP+
768MB PC2100 RAM
Radeon 9600

Is that enough to use wine/and whatever that "kde" and "gnome" stuff is?

So many questions.. =]

Also Deach: what should I not do?

Too bad I didn't how I screwed up Windows yesterday while installing Slackware. I could have told you what not to do.

For Knoppix, it was just right click and open with Wine. More than likely it's the same for others.

I think you could do that. If you did you would need a boot loader though, such as LILO.

I think that would be enough for KDE or Gnome. KDE worked for me though, and my computer is a lot slower than yours.

[Skinner8]

Yeah, your computer should be just fine for more or less anything you try. The desktop enviroments don't use much resources (apart from RAM, perhaps) anyway.

[riasroC]

Thanks for the help guys =]

I'm gonna reformat windows in about 10 minutes and after that install linux.

I heard that starcraft/warcraft III run on linux, if thats true and it works like it does on windows then I don't think I'll ever go into windows again =D

[riasroC]

Well, I'm on Mandrake 10.1 right now. All I can say is that it is funky. It is quite nice looking. I'm still trying to figure out how to do stuff. =]

Any reccomendations for stuff to download music off of?(like the linux equivelant of bearshare, or something)

Right now I'm using "Konqueror" for web browsing - is FireFox still better?

[Edit] And what the fuck do you know, somethings messing up.

During installation CD2 would just freeze on me. It would say "7 minutes left" for over 40 minutes. And the "help" and "cancel" button wasn't working either. It just froze. So I had to reinstall without CD2(just the 1st and 3rd CD), and I think that fucked me up.

Whenever I click on ATI Drivers or GAIM, nothing happens. It says "loading software installer" for about half a minute but it doesn't load it. It just closes and nothing happens.

Is it supposed to do that or is my Linux fucked up?

._.

[MaXim]

You can try running those programs in the shell and see what's stopping them from running. Often, programs that don't run from the graphical system will tell you what's wrong when you run them from console.

[Xaenn]

I still prefer firefox...
Nicotine is a soulseek client if that's what you want. There are many clients that use the edonkey network but I've not had good luck with them...

[Norgus]

I like to think of "Konqueror" and KDEs "internet explorer", it sucks but not as badly as IE.

[madcrow]

konqueror is OK, but it doesn't have the naer 100% site compatability of firefox. still, if all the sites you go to work OK with konqueror, stick with it. also, you'll probably need to get a better version of mplayer. most distros come with a version that disables mpeg-4 (divx, xvid, etc) playback and dvd playback. you should prolly compile it yourself, but there might be some RPMs to install somewhere online.